Importing data from electronic images, such as scanned documents is a laborious task. Often one requires not nearly an electronic copy, such as a scan, of the image, but also the data or other textual information in a form that can be used. Most prior art systems for assisting the completion of computer-generated forms use optical character recognition, natural language processing and other artificial intelligence techniques to identify specific types of information elements within scanned documents. Once the information elements are identified, they are placed in the appropriate fields or locations on a selected form. However, these methods are widely known as being very unreliable.
In addition, prior art systems can process only one document at a time, which further adds to the labor and time associated with populated electronic documents. Also, the hardware used for scanning documents and assisting the completion of computer-generated forms requires the documents to have a predefined size and orientation so that they can be scanned appropriately. This can limit the versatility of the system and may require the purchase of specific hardware for scanning particular types of documents. For example, business card scanners are now available, which allow a user to feed business cards into the scanner, one card at a time, and extract contact information for populating an address book. The scanner is sized to accept a business card having a predefined size and orientation. These scanners are not usable for scanning other types and sizes of documents, such as purchase receipts and bills. Also, business cards must be scanned one card at a time, which reduces efficiency. Other business card-specific scanners, such as that sold by Hotcard Technology Pte Ltd, can scan multiple cards at one time, but the cards must have particular orientations on the scanner.
Form filling can therefore be tedious, time consuming, and highly susceptible to human error. Thus, there is an unmet need in the art for systems and methods that facilitate faster and more accurate form filling. Improved methods and apparatus are desired for populating electronic forms from scanned documents or other electronic images.